Name-calling leads to ugly scenes in Bihar Assembly

The Bihar Legislative Council on Thursday witnessed unprecedented scenes with the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members clashing with each other.

The fracas between the members of former allies took place during question hour when JD-U MLC Sanjay Singh took exception to BJP’s Sushil Modi referring to water resources minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary by his name.

Modi had intervened while Choudhary was replying to a question by a BJP member regarding the state government’s decision to reduce the scholarship amount from Rs.1 lakh to Rs.15,000 for backward and extremely backward students.

Singh also made certain remarks which angered Modi, the leader of the Opposition, who rushed into the well of the House demanding that the JD-U member’s remarks be expunged. Other BJP members, led by state party president Mangal Pandey, followed him.

Council chairman Awadhesh Narayan Singh quickly moved to another question by then but he had to adjourn the House till 2:30 pm But a scuffle soon broke out even after the adjournment with the BJP and the JD-U members shoving each other while trading charges. The situation could have turned uglier had some senior members, with the help of marshals, not intervened to save the situation.

Later, Pandey alleged that Singh used highly objectionable language against Modi at Nitish Kumar’s behest. Singh countered that Pandey and other BJP MLCs had used foul language to tarnish the reputation of the upper House.

Modi, too, alleged that it was Nitish who had instigated Singh, who was sitting beside the former CM. “This was a shameful incident which had never taken place in the Vidhan Parishad,” he said. “I was once the target of the RJD members in the state assembly during Lalu Prasad’s reign but had never seen an incident in the upper House.”

He said Nitish did not usually stay in the House for more than five minutes but was present for more than half an hour today to “instigate his party MLC since the government was going to the mat over the scholarship issue”.

Courtesy: India Today